Damil Components laces modular Italian-made alloy hubs into affordable wheels

Italian hub & wheel maker Damil Components introduced a new set of high-performance machined aluminum road & mountain bike hubs promising a modular design that can be adapted to almost any drivetrain on the market. Plus, beyond in-house hub production, Damil also builds their components into affordably priced wheelsets in carbon & alloy working with trusted rim producers.

Damil Components CNC machined 7075 alloy bike hubs

Damil Components was founded back in 2015 out of the contract machining workshop of Andrea Repele in northern Italy. A long time mountain biker with more than two decades of experience CNC machining parts in and out of the cycling industry, he envisioned a new generation of premium quality, precision-made, stiff & smooth rolling Italian bike hubs. Offering hubs to fit pretty much every road and trail application, Damil manufactures every part of their hubs except the bearings in-house near Vicenza in northern Italy, west of Venice.

Damil Italian-made aluminum hubs – tech details

No matter if you are looking or DH, XC, gravel, or road hubs, they all share the same construction – machined from 7075 aluminum for light, stiff performance.

All hubs use specific thread-in axles for each thru-axle diameter and spacing, and feature internal alloy axle spacers that stretch from bearing-to-bearing & bearing-to-endcap to ensure precise bearing alignment & loading for a long, smooth spinning life. (No tool-free exchangeable endcaps which they say decrease performance & bearing lifespan.) Engagement is with four two-tooth pawls that all engage simultaneously to a 60 tooth ratchet ring for relatively quick, but super secure power transfer.

All hubs share the same modular, interchangeable freehub bodies to fit Shimano, Campagnolo & SRAM XD cassettes. A Shimano XTR 12-speed Micro Spline compatible freehub is the most recent introduction, and uses Damil’s own unique modified design to work within the still closed XTR 12sp standard.

A new XDR driver for new road & gravel groupsets is in the final stages of development right now, and will be ready for consumers by the end of March. Damil says they haven’t had any interest yet in a Rotor 1×13 compatible body, but following along their concept of universal fit, they would foresee developing one in the future that would work with their modular hubs. Their overarching idea is that every new hub they produce is designed to offer maximum flexibility with any type of drivetrain on the market, and they will continue to develop new cassette interfaces as the need arises.

Their current mountain hubs are available with nicely machined 6-bolt disc mounts, and either traditional hub flanges for J-bend spokes or straight-pull specific hubshells. They are considering the option for centerlock MTB hubs if there is demand. Of course various hub shell width & axle spacings are available, for standard, Boost & DH hubs. A set of Boost straightpull MTB hubs has claimed weight of 438g (155g front, 283g rear.)

Rim brake hubs are available in several lacing & drilling combinations as well, with this Campy-ready classic J-bend front and rear hub mixing straight-pull & J-bend being the most common configuration. This set of rim brake quick release road hubs has claimed weight of 362g (98g front, 264g rear.)

Their newest option for road are these new straight-pull centerlock disc brake hubs. Fresh off the lathe these prototypes may still see further machining to reduce weight before they are finalized and get laser etched branding. Their 6-bolt road disc predecessors came in at 418g for the pair(135g front, 283g rear) so expect to shed a few more grams from that.

Damil hub options, pricing & availability

All of the hubs are available in a range of ten anodized colors: pink, fuscia, red, yellow, orange, gold, green, blue, silver & black. And all of the hubs have very similar retail pricing. Damil says pricing essentially equates directly to machining complexity & the actual amount of aluminum needed. Hubsets range from 320€ to 370€ for the pair, with classic road hubs at the low end of that and wide DH hubs the most expensive end of the spectrum. No difference in pricing for the different freehub bodies or any of the 10 ano colors. Additional freehub bodies sell for 87€ a piece if you plan to change up your drivetrain.

Damil says they try to keep stock of all hubs in every configuration, so they can routinely ship out a hubset when ordered in 1 or 2 working days. Hubs are available through a retailer network, or direct from Damil.

Damil in house complete carbon & alloy wheelsets

In addition to manufacturing their own hubsets for pretty much all cycling disciplines, Damil also builds complete wheelsets in their shop. All wheels use Sapim spokes and their 7075 hubs, available in the full range of colors, axle standards & freehubs.

Damil laces up their wheels in-house with either tubeless carbon rims from a trusted producer in Taiwan, or with Stan’s alloy tubeless rims for road, gravel, cyclocross, or mountain bike applications. They also even offer alloy road rims made locally for a more completely Italian wheel build. All of the alloy wheelsets retail for 700€, while the carbon wheelsets range in price from 1200-1500€

Damil sells through a growing dealer network throughout Europe. But if you don’t find a retailer near you, they will sell either hubs or complete wheels consumer-direct and ship them to your door.

DamilComponents.com